


Atonement

by thedevilchicken



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anger, Angst, Barebacking, Drinking, Explicit Sexual Content, Fights, M/M, Mid-Canon, Post-Charlestown, Rough Sex, Shame, Spit As Lube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 02:51:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11095353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Honestly, Flint isn't sure if it's the wrong thing for all the right reasons or the other way around.





	Atonement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andrea_deer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrea_deer/gifts).



Honestly, Flint isn't sure if it's the wrong thing for all the right reasons or the other way around. 

"I don't know what you expected," Vane says, and the bastard's smirking, infuriatingly he's _still_ smirking even now, but wiping the smirk off his face with his fist would take more energy than Flint particularly wishes to expend at this moment. So he wipes the come from between his cheeks with Vane's discarded shirt and throws it at him across the cabin, and Vane just laughs as he catches it. 

Honestly, Flint isn't sure what he'd expected, either. Probably this, though. Probably exactly this.

\---

The sea was up just rough enough as they started on their way back home from Charlestown for the wind to catch fully in the sails and speed them along before it. They moved more swiftly than anyone they'd left behind might have followed if they'd tried to, but it was Flint's strong suspicion that they wouldn't try. 

Flint had encountered no small number of pirates who hadn't known at all what it was they were about, who wouldn't have known a futtock shroud from a mainstay from a bloody hawser of all things, but Vane's men weren't among them, and neither were his. They made good time and they knew the way and a good fight always cheered them, even after they took casualties. That was the life, after all, and it had been just as true on the deck of a frigate of His Majesty's Navy as it was for them then underneath their black flag: you took your losses, and you moved on. 

Miranda was a loss. Miranda was a heavy loss. Miranda with a musket ball to rattle round inside her skull was like a battery of guns had carried off his mainmast, unchained his rudder and left him adrift in the midst of the fight. He was helpless and wounded and fucking enraged and he knew should have taken the loss and moved on because there was still a fight to be had. Easier said than done, he thought, when she'd been the only one left who'd seen beneath what he'd become. Easier said than done when she was all that he'd had left to anchor him to his old life. Easier said than done when he'd loved her as much as he was able, if not as much as she'd deserved. Easier said than done; he's always thought accepting loss is easier at sea than it is on land. 

They weren't needed up on deck after the initial rush of cheer at their escape, and once the coast was out of sight they both disappeared below. Vane went first and Flint considered that he might stay at the rail, in the wind and the spray with the salt in his eyes, but the thoughts in his head were rougher than the water was. His grip at the rail was so damned tight his fingers nearly cramped from it, and so he prised himself away and followed. Vane didn't look back. It was almost as if he expected him to follow, even if he hadn't asked and hadn't told. Vane's always taken too many things for granted. 

"Have a drink," Vane said, as he poured too much rum into two worn old tin cups and spilled almost another cup's worth on the table as he did so. Vane's always taken too many things for granted, and he's never had even half enough care. 

Flint closed the door and he leaned back heavily against it, his fingers curling tight into his palms, stiff-backed. "I'd rather not," he replied, tersely, as he watched across the room. The dying sunlight through the stern window made Vane out almost all in silhouette until Flint's eyes adjusted, till he could pick out the buttons on Vane's shirt, the buckles on his boots. It happened quickly enough. Flint may have not been getting any younger, but he liked to think his eyes were still almost as sharp.

"Have a fucking drink," Vane said, looking faintly amused, and he walked across the room to hand a cup to him. Flint didn't take it and so Vane just held it there, outstretched in air, like _no_ was just the kind of response other people might accept, but never him. Flint had, once upon a time. Once upon a time, he'd taken orders very nearly readily. He had, however, no single intention in his head of taking his orders from Charles Vane. 

Flint looked at him. Flint considered him. He didn't like the man and he didn't trust him, and he absolutely didn't respect him. He wasn't even sure he understood him, not that he'd ever taken much time in the course of a day to try it. He'd have called him a hedonist except that often his actions ran so contrary to expectation it was as if he chose the worst possible path just for the hell of it and didn't choose for pleasure. He couldn't rely on him. He couldn't even rely on him acting consistently within his own desires because his desires seemed inconsistent, too. The only thing he could say was Vane was quick to anger, just as quick as Flint knew he was himself, and that was maybe something he could use. The low, smoldering burn he'd had in his chest since Miranda's death said that he had to. The bile in his throat and gnawing in his gut said it was the right thing to do if anything was. 

He swatted the cup out of Vane's outstretched hand and it clattered to the floor with a splash of rum against the boards. Vane raised his brows. He smirked. That was hardly the reaction Flint had been expecting, but who knew what to expect where Vane was concerned.

"I know it's not _good_ , but that's a damned waste of a drink," Vane said, and he stooped to pick the cup up off the floor, but when he glanced at Flint before he walked back to the desk, bootheels loud against the wood, the bastard still looked amused. He drank his own rum down in one, throwing back his head with it, then poured out two more cups of rum and offered one to Flint again, Charles Vane the sudden optimist. Or else he was enjoying Flint's quite evident irritation.

Flint took the cup. He poured the contents out onto the floorboards, then he tossed the cup aside again and didn't bother turning his head to watch it bounce. Vane laughed, a low chuckle down deep in his chest, and then he went to pour another. 

"You're a piece of work," Vane said, and he drank his own cup down then poured two more. He came back to Flint there at the door and he held out the cup to him again, _again_ , like he was intrigued to see exactly what he'd do this time, so Flint took it, and he lifted it, and he upended it calmly over the top of Vane's head. 

Vane laughed. The bastard _laughed_ , and he pulled off his shirt and rubbed at his damp face with it before the alcohol could get into his eyes. He tossed the shirt onto the cabin floor and ran his hands through his long hair. He didn't look annoyed in the slightest, damn him all to hell. He looked disconcertingly like he was enjoying himself. 

"You're infuriating," Flint said, as Vane crouched down to retrieve the cup yet again. 

Vane shrugged, looking up at him. There were thin trails of rum running down his neck, down over his over his collarbones, down his chest, and Flint watched them, feeling his stomach knot with it, feeling his anger surge. But there was something underneath that, darker, deeper, unexamined. He didn't choose that moment to examine it.

"And I don't even have to try," Vane replied, looking pleased with himself. Flint grimaced, his teeth bared; Vane stood himself back up, cup in hand, and chuckled again, seeming entertained. He was _not_ Charles Vane's fucking entertainment.

"Have a drink," Vane said. 

Flint scowled. "I didn't come here to drink," he said. 

Vane tilted his head, the damp ends of his hair sticking to his damp, bare chest. Vane looked at him, his hands on his hips with the empty cup dangling lightly from one thumb, his trousers far too low on his waist to seem remotely practical but showing off the creases in the muscle that ran down from his abdomen to disappear beneath his belt. Vane watched him watching him. He smirked. Again. 

"Yeah, I believe you mean that," Vane said, and he turned away again to go back to the table. He drank his rum and he poured two more and then he turned back to Flint. He leaned there against the edge of the desk, crumpling the maps and papers without the faintest indication that he cared he'd done it, drumming his blunt fingernails against the edge. He rubbed at the rum on his chest with one thumb then licked it clean, and Flint's stomach turned. 

"So," Vane said, leaning lackadaisically with his eyes on him in the fading light, but the tilt of his chin was very nearly a challenge. "Do you want to fight or do you want to fuck?"

Flint was appalled. He was genuinely appalled, viscerally, frowning with it, grimacing, glaring. The idea of it was utterly abhorrent to him. He'd come to _fight_ him, nothing else, because Vane should have been the perfect choice to get riled up and start a ruck until they finished bloody and bruised and aching, and ultimately - so Flint reasoned - with some small measure of satisfaction, or at least some measure of calm lent to the tumult in his head. He hadn't gone there for sex. If he'd wanted it, Vane wouldn't have been his first port of call, or his second, or his third. But Vane swept back his rum-sticky hair from his shoulders and he _smirked_ , and the very next instant Flint was there, Flint had stalked across the room and had his hands around Vane's neck. He squeezed. What little breath Vane had left in him, he laughed it out as he braced himself and shoved him back. 

"You're not going to kill me," Vane said, stepping forward as Flint reeled back. 

"I'm not?" Flint replied, because frankly, he wasn't sure that wasn't his intention. He wasn't sure his needs wouldn't be better served by tearing out Vane's throat. 

Vane shook his head. "No," he said. "Don't tell me you think you want to. You're a lot of things, Flint, but you're not a fucking liar." 

He stepped forward. Flint stepped back. He stepped farther forward. Flint stepped farther back. Flint's back hit the door and he struck out at him; Vane caught his wrist in his hand with a quirk of his brows and he was close to him, _too_ close to him, so close he could smell the rum and the salt on his over-warm skin, feel the heat of him, see the flecks of colour in his light eyes, small scars he'd never noticed before. They all had their scars. The kind of life that they both led left no one untouched, whether navy or pirate or privateer. 

Flint opened his mouth to protest but Vane stopped his mouth with his own, so Flint pushed him back. Vane smirked, of course, then he kissed him again, and Flint pushed him then he hit him, his fist connected solidly with Vane's jaw and sent him reeling, laughing, down onto his knees. He picked himself up and then there he was again, kissing him, pushing him up against the door, one knee between Flint's thighs, insistent. Flint pushed him back _again_ , hit him, knocked him down into a sprawl, but Vane just picked himself up again, dusted himself off with a great deal of dramatic exaggeration. Then Vane kissed him again, _again_ , caught his wrists and pinned him there, his mouth firm on his, and Flint struggled free and slapped him full across the face. 

Vane laughed. Vane slapped him back and Flint's cheek stung with it and he hated himself for how his head seemed to spin against the pitch of the ship beneath his feet, how something dark coiled in him that made him feel almost as sick as hole in Miranda's head. 

He kissed Vane. It was impulsive, compulsive, his fingers twisting hard into Vane's long, damp hair. He pulled him up against him, the other hand hard at the small of Vane's back. Vane tasted of the rum Flint hadn't drunk. He smelled like blood and salt and all the fucking filth of a pirate ship but Flint kissed him and Vane kissed back, hard, grasping at him, his knee back in between Flint's thighs and God, oh God, oh _God_ , Flint's cock stirred inside his trousers. He didn't want that. It repulsed him, or he told himself it did. 

He bit Vane's lip and Vane extricated himself in an instant, stepped back with an amused sort of snort as he touched his fingers to his lip. He hadn't broken the skin. It wasn't for want of trying. 

"Make up your damn mind," Vane said, looking at him. "We can fight or we can fuck but I'm too fucking tired to do both. Aren't you?"

Flint supposed he was. He was angry, yes, but he was tired, too. He was exhausted, expended, like a guttering candle flame about to burn itself out, and it was repulsive, sickening, distasteful, but when Vane's hand went down to give a squeeze at the crotch of his leather trousers, Flint's own cock gave a corresponding twitch of interest. He hadn't let himself feel that in years. He'd tried to make himself feel it with Miranda, he'd wanted to, to please her at the very least, but there it was, a flare of desire spreading hotly in him. He hated it. He wanted it. He needed it, now, just for a while.

He kissed Vane. He kissed him roughly, no particular thought of Vane's comfort or his own, blunt nails raking at the small of Vane's bare back. His cock stirred and he pushed him back, went with him; they stumbled together to the desk and spilled a cup of rum all over it but Flint didn't care, at least not for the moment. His fingers fumbled at Vane's belt and Vane permitted that. His fingers pushed down Vane's worn leather trousers and Vane permitted him to do that, too. He should have stopped, he knew, but he didn't stop; he took Vane's cock in his hand, thick and hot and heavy, stroked it as Vane bit his neck, eased back his foreskin, rubbed his thumb over the head. He didn't feel like Thomas. Oh God, he didn't need that name inside his head. 

Vane pushed him down over the desk and moved in close behind and Flint let him do it. Vane unbuckled his belt and pulled down his trousers, pushed them over his hips, let them gather at his thighs, and Flint let him do that, too, feeling sick, feeling dizzy, feeling full up to the brim with hate and spite and lust. Vane spat in his hand and likely rubbed his cock with it. Vane spat against his hole, between his cheeks, and pushed there with the thick, blunt head of his cock. Flint gripped the desk, his shirt hanging in the spilled rum, the charts all ruined but he found it difficult to care. And Vane entered him. Vane penetrated him, Vane's cock pushed into him, burning, hot, huge, making Flint's breath catch and his hands grip tighter. It had never been like that with Thomas. There'd always been such care. 

Vane fucked him. He did it slowly at first, his hands pushed up under the hem of Flint's shirt to grip at his hips, to rub with one thumb at the cleft of his arse as his cock moved in him. Vane fucked him slowly and Flint's own cock hung down heavy between his thighs, hard and aching. Vane's thighs struck his with each thrust with a slap of skin on skin that rose in volume with Vane's increasing force and Flint braced himself, Flint screwed his eyes shut, Flint grimaced, jaw set, teeth bared, and fuck, he began to push himself back to meet him. It was jarring. It wasn't good, it wasn't pleasurable, it wasn't anything he'd ever wanted, but he did. He wanted it in spite of himself. He wanted the friction of Vane's cock in him, the girth of it, the heft of it, how each thrust of Vane's hips made him see stars behind his eyelids and made his cock just that much harder. 

He touched himself. He brought one hand down in front of the table edge and he touched himself, he stroked himself, he groaned and pulled tight around Vane's cock and made him groan out loud with the sensation, too. He stroked himself till Vane knew what he was doing and then _Vane_ touched him, Vane's rough hand on him as he went still inside him. He stroked him till he came, with a bone-deep shudder and a muffled shout with Vane's cock still seated deep inside him, and then Vane fucked him, harder, wilder, deeper, gripping his hips almost too damn tight. Vane came in him. He felt it, his cock pulsing in him with it. There'd been no other man since Thomas. He resented that it was Charles Vane's cock he had inside him, Charles Vane's come he had in him, Charles Vane's groan he heard as he pulled out. It should have been Thomas. He resented that it wasn't. Mostly, he resented himself. 

"Get off me," he said, darkly, his voice half-broken, and Vane obliged with a dry-sounding snicker. He took the unspilled cup of rum and drank from it, then offered it to Flint once he'd stood, once he'd turned, once he'd leaned back half-dressed against the desk. Flint frowned, first at Vane and then the cup, and then he took it, drained it, held it out for Vane to pour another. 

So now Vane pours, he takes a sip, and then he hands it to him. Of all things, after all of this, Flint should know better than to be offended by the thought of drinking after him. He can feel the sweat from Vane's hands against his hips. He can feel Vane's come between his cheeks. He drinks, then he passes back the cup, and Vane drinks too, with his trousers still pushed down around his thighs like that's comfortable for him, like that's natural. 

In spite of himself, in spite of everything, Flint feels a flicker of desire inside him. He'd have him again if he could, right now. He'd straddle Vane's thighs and ride his cock till they both ached with it. It would be almost as good as a fight. 

\---

"You know, I thought you'd choose the fight," Vane says, watching over the cup. 

"So did I," Flint replies. He takes the cup, feeling ashamed, feeling naked, but Vane evidently doesn't give a fuck if Captain Flint fucks men or not as well as women. From the way he looks at him then, Vane's eyes on him, on his bare thighs, on his bare abdomen where his shirt's hitched up, on his softening cock, he _likes_ that he fucks men. Of course, the likelihood is where Charles Vane's concerned that he'd fuck anyone that moves. "I didn't come here for this."

"I don't know what you expected," Vane says, and the bastard's smirking, infuriatingly he's _still_ smirking even now, but wiping the smirk off his face with his fist would take energy that Flint just doesn't have. So he wipes the come from between his cheeks with Vane's rum-soaked shirt and he throws it at him across the room, and Vane just laughs as he catches it and uses it to wipe himself off, too. Then he starts to light the lanterns, turning the room all firelight and shadows. 

Honestly, Flint isn't sure what he'd expected, either. Probably this, though. Probably exactly this.

Vane isn't a comfort, but Flint's not looking to be comforted. What he wants is punishment, because he knows that's what he deserves. He's failed Miranda now, just as he failed Thomas. He's devastated. He's aghast. 

"Give me an hour and we'll go again," Vane says, and Flint thinks it's more than likely that they will, at least if they put the cork back in the rum. Perhaps it doesn't seem like punishment to Vane who apparently thinks nothing of stripping himself bare in front of him to start to wash off rum and come and blood and dirt and so Flint joins him at the bowl and takes the cloth. Perhaps it doesn't seem like punishment, but that's what it is. Vane is nothing like Thomas; when Vane fucks him, he'll remember how he's failed. And if he enjoys it, he'll just despise himself a fraction more.

Honestly, Flint isn't sure if it's the wrong thing for all the right reasons or the other way around. He doesn't feel better. But, if he's honest, somehow he doesn't feel worse.


End file.
